i wish i was in beijing.

three days there last weekend wasn't enough. this is an epic moment in chinese history...in fact, it's chinese modern history in the making! after being in beijing throughout the last year of preparations for the games, from "文明奥运 (civilized Olympics)“ to fuwas painted everywhere (i recently realized their names form the sentence 北京欢迎你）...i can't help but feel like i'm missing out on something HUGE now that it's finally happening, and meanwhile i'm trying to settle into a new life in shanghai.

8/8/08 felt like Y2K. daily life was disrupted, we all held our breath in case *something* might happen on this long-awaited, much-anticipated day. and like any other new year's eve, we all had to be somewhere cool to experience it. i felt the restrictions. i landed at midnight the night before. instead of cabs, i found loads of "olympic" people waiting for buses to qingdao or tianjin, and the rest of the non-olympic people waiting for the only bus still running to town. wtf where all the cabs? the next day, parts of the 2nd ring road were closed...by evening a large part of 2nd and 3rd ring road area were closed. it was near impossible to get a cab - they all went home to share this moment with their families!

that morning, i had looked out the window, saw that the visibility was at its worst compared to before and thought to myself, "f*ck, china is going to lose face." years of anti-pollution efforts for the olympics and still an incredibly smoggy olympic opening day. no locals believed me - “it's just fog. this means it's going to rain soon." i bet gives the chinese athletes a competitive edge though, haha.

despite the smogginess and transport difficulties, the olympic spirit is overwhelming and just sucks you in. tunes of "we are ready" fill the air. cab drivers now have spiffy uniforms - yellow button down shirt and blue tie. olympic talk is part of every conversation.

sadly, the only olympic game i went to was a women's soccer game...in tianjin. but with china playing against canada, it was pretty awesome. forget extreme humidity and pollution cloud sinking in. forget training to/from beijing and getting semi-stranded at a new train station in the middle of nowhere. or skipping dinner. i had most of my closest friends made in beijing with me, and three drunk, tall white guys that became the entertainment of most of the locals surrounding us. the packed stadium was a sea of red...and fan-like instruments being waved back and forth. i tried to start the wave, but people mostly looked at me funny. then loud and drunk white guy #1 got up, bellowed with loud drunk white guy #2...and soon enough we had the wave going almost all the way around the stadium and lots of mini-waves started by themselves. talk about empowerment! people took pictures of us...one man had a giant lens shameless pointed at us 4 feet away for a good half hour. with an entire stadium rooting, the spirit was AMAZING! it's hard to fully describe the PRIDE and SPIRIT of the chinese people for their country... this represents continuous steps forward for our beloved PRC in the globalized modern world.

sure, china is battling a history of human rights abuses. environmental regulations are nonexist. urban/rural disparities are deepning. ethnic tensions are heavy in the west. most of the olympic propaganda is cheesy and overdone. but i am still immensely proud of china for how far it has come. that similar sentiment of hope and joy pervades the olympic air. i'm not sure when it happened, but i think i caught the china bug last year.

and after spending 2 out of the past 3 weekends in beijing, i need to let go and start a new life in shanghai. for those of you still there, i am incredibly jealous - soak up that nationalism on my behalf and, when you get a chance, cheer for me too - "中国加油！！“

sigh.